Makeup for boys, texting lingo, and more: letters to the editor

‘He has a right’

Regarding the article, “Suspended boy should get to wear makeup at Texas school ‘like any girl,’ friends says”: It is 2018 and three years ago a transgender won the ESPY award for courage. This is no longer news that a male student is wearing makeup to class.

There has been the topic of gender neutral bathrooms which are much more of a bigger issue than a male student wearing makeup to class. There should be no rule stating which gender can wear makeup. Boys are allowed to have ear piercings and wear those to school, and earrings are usually considered to be something that girls wear. Therefore, there is no difference.

I do not think that a suspension should be given to a student who was trying to express himself, and just because his superiors did not agree, they punished him. Self-expression is so popular and more important now than ever. I think this discourages people who want to be different.

Explore where you live.

The boy’s action is not something I agree with politically; however, I still believe he has a right and that the school acted inappropriately. - Paige Pristas, State College, PA

‘LOL died two years ago’

Regarding “LOL? BRB? Mom proposes alternative text lingo for parents of millennials”: The breakdown of this article is a mother of millennial children discussing common text slang and suggesting new text abbreviations as an alternative. Even though the author claims to be a “hipster communicator mom,” the fact of the matter is, text lingo is an outdated form of communication. For at least millennials, that is.

According to Facebook research reports, the term LOL died two years ago. A report released in 2015 from Facebook researchers found that more users were using the term “haha” instead. Fifty percent of Facebook users expressed their digital-faux laughter as “haha” while LOL came in at a whopping 1.9 percent. The term LOL was closely affiliated with older users, while millennials identified with “haha.”

This also eliminates the use of “ROFL” (rolling on the floor laughing) and “LMFAO” (laughing my freaking ass off), which personally, I haven’t used or seen since late 2008. Terms like BRB and TTYL are also outdated because no one is going anywhere. Millennials are no longer saying farewell due to the fact that people constantly have their cellphone devices on them.

With smartphones being able to detect misspelled words and understanding abbreviations, texts are often auto-corrected before being sent anyways. Even though texting is the most prominent form of communication for millennials to use, text lingo is slowly falling into an abyss. - Sara Niland, University Park, PA

‘Parents are the premier teachers’

The CDT article “Thomas Rhett to bring ‘Life Changes’ tour to BJC,” featured the life story about Thomas Rhett and his gratitude to his father for affecting him with deep love of music. This reminds me what my mother always says to me that parents are the premier teachers for their children and affect them the most.

As we know, the great inventor Thomas Edison had his mother who protected his self-esteem, trusted him completely and gave him support to pursue his dream. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had respect and support from his father Leopold Mozart and became a famous musician. It is important for parents to act correctly and responsibly to affect their children in the right way.

However, there are some parents nowadays who put much more of their focus on social media than their children, affect their children to use technology at an early age and neglect the importance of interacting with their children. Rhett mentioned about changes of his life and found the best way for him to pursue his career, but he still remembered the importance of being with his family.

Definitely, everyone should find the most appropriate way to live, and everyone’s would be different, but it is essential for us to be real and share our lives with people we love. - Jinglan Lou, State College, PA